The Body on the Table
by Michelle Birkby
Summary: My very first Bones fanfic and I've only seen 4 episodes... Ever since I started watching this, this story's been begging me to be told. Angsty obviously, given that it's me and TemperanceBooth shippy. WARNING for character death
1. Bones

_Italics_ are flashbacks.

* * *

Temperance Brennan focused the light on the bones carefully scattered across the table. So few bones, merely fragments really, but they could tell such a story.

"_You make it sound like the bones talk to you."_

"_They do. And they make a lot more sense than regular people, I can tell you."_

"_You're doolally, Bones."_

"_I don't know what that means. And don't call me Bones."_

She walked around the table, carefully readjusting the shattered shards of bone. A rib here, a metatarsal there. Tiny bits of dirty white material, looking just like stones. A man's whole life, everything he felt and thought and loved and wanted and ate and watched and breathed, all here in these fragile, scruffy remains.

Temperance picked up a fragment of a pelvic bone, and turned it over and over in her hands, searching out it's secrets.

Yes, definitely a man.

"_We need facts. We can't just assume anything. That's unscientific." Brennan snapped, striding ahead of Booth, leaving him half running in an effort to catch up with her._

"_Hey, you're the scientist, I'm the FBI guy. I'm allowed to rely on my gut. It's practically in the job description.". He finally caught up with her, and taking her arm, span her round to face him. "Where would Clarice have been if she ignored her gut instinct? Swimming around in Hannibal Lecter's gut with a nice Chianti." he joked, trying to make her smile. She just looked adorably puzzled._

"_Who are these people? I don't know what you're talking about." She stepped back away from him, genuinely frustrated. "I never know what you're talking about."_

_Booth put his hands on his hips, blowing out a sigh._

"_Do you even watch TV? Movies? Read a few books occasionally? Participate in any of the activities the rest of the human race engages in?" he asked, only half sarcastically. She looked guilty, surprisingly._

"_I'm too busy." she said weakly._

"_Oh, you're too busy to read books, but not too busy to write them?"_

"_I like writing." she said, softly, but still confused. Booth always confused her. Not just the pop culture references he insisted on throwing into every conversation. Everyone did that to her. He just wasn't like anybody else she knew._

_And, as always, the lost-in-the-real-world look on her face melted his anger and annoyance._

"_And you do it well, Bones." he said, reaching out to her. "Now, back to the case..."_

"_You read my books?" she asked, incredulous. He shrugged, embarrassed._

"_I may have glanced into one or two."_

"_And you liked them?"_

"_I've read worse."_

"_You liked them that much?" she said, recognising the compliment underneath the throwaway words._

"_Yeah...but is..."_

"_No,the FBI guy isn't you." she snapped, turning away. "Okay, back to the case. The simple scientific fact is, you're wrong, and I'm right."_

She switched on the tape recorder. Her voice was steady and strong and clear as she spoke into it.

"I would estimate the man's height at 188 centimeters, and the weight at between 200 and 230 pounds.

"_You're going to get fat if you just keep eating like that."_

"_Show me another autopsy photograph and I'll lose my appetite forever. Then I'll be skinny and you'll be happy."_

"_They're just pictures. You're too sensitive."_

"_Thanks for your concern, Bones."_

"_I mean it." she reached over the table and put her hand on his._

"_I worry about you." she said. "I do. You don't have a healthy lifestyle, you eat way too much junk food, you're always rushing around the country..."_

"_Getting shot at by bad guys. Don't worry about me, Bones. Worry about yourself." _

_She withdrew her hand suddenly._

"_What's wrong with me?" she said, stung._

"_I don't know if you noticed, Brennan, but the same bad guys that are shooting at me are usually shooting at you too." The cockiness disappeared from his tone, and he stared across the table at her, as if what he had just said had just hit him too._

"_That doesn't worry me." she said, snagging one of his fries and popping it into her mouth. "You're looking after me. I know I'm safe if you're around."_


	2. Scars

"Multiple abrasions of the bones indicate multiple injuries, some sustained recently, some old injuries. It is possible some of these may be the cause of death. However, most of the injuries seem to be of non-recent origin, indicating a violent life. Perhaps this death was always to be expected."

She stopped the tape and stared at the hip bone in her hand.

"_Your brother gave you that scar?"_

"_Yep. We were close, except when he was trying to murder me."_

"_Just how many scars do you have, anyway?"_

"_Only two ways you're going to find that out, Bones. One way is to get me on your table."_

"_And the other?"_

_He turned around and waggled his eyebrows at her, grinning at her. She sighed and frowned, and stared out the window at the passing traffic._

"_You should keep your eyes on the road when you're driving." she told him, not sure why she was angry. He just grinned, slipped on his sunglasses, and kept driving._

She rewound the tape and erased the last remark. It was too poetic. It was scientific enough. Not cold and calm enough. Not the way she should speak.

She had a feeling it'd make it to her books though. Her poetical side could let loose there.

Her poetry.

Her passion.

Her pain.

All saved for the books.

"_Seriously, I like your books." he told her, staring at the post-its stuck to the wall in a rough approximation of the plot._

"_Really?" she said, looking up at him, with her trademark puzzled expression. She span the plastic stand around so he couldn't see the especially clever plot twist near the end._

"_Really." he said, looking down at her. "They're good plots, and they're well-told, and they give me the creeps, and the occasional nightmare."_

"_Umm...thanks. I think."_

"_No, seriously, it's a compliment. Hey, can I get a signed copy this time?"_

"_You want me to write a dedication? What would I say?" she said, squeezing past him and striding into the corridor._

"_How about 'To Seeley Booth, the inspiration behind..."_

_She stopped and span round, poking him in the chest with her finger._

"_For the last time, Booth, you are not the inspiration for the FBI guy!"_

"_And you're not the pathologist, I get it. But..."_

"_But..."_

"_The pathologist kinda likes the FBI guy, doesn't she?"_

"_I suppose." she said reluctantly._

"_And the FBI guy kinda likes the pathologist." he added._

"_I guess." she admitted._

"_So, if they were based on you and me, that would mean we sorta liked each other." he said, inching a little closer to her. She felt like she ought to back away. She really should walk away. But oddly enough, she found she couldn't._

_Even more, she found she didn't want to._

"_I guess." she repeated, slowly. "But they're not, so we..."_

"_Don't like each other?" he said, grinning infuriatingly. He was loving this, she could tell._

"_I like you." she said, shaking her head. "But I don't necessarily like you."_

"_Making as much sense as ever, Bones." he was actually bending towards her, his face inches from hers. _

"_Don't call me Bones." she said, but her mouth was oddly dry, and she found she couldn't breathe properly. Even worse, she found herself tilting her head up, almost begging for him to kiss her._

"_Anything you say, Bones." he said, and now his lips were almost touching hers, so close she could feel her lips tingling. This was it, Booth was actually going to kiss her! She and Booth were going to finally, after all this time, kiss...except Zach came round the corner at that moment._

_And Zach did the whole pretending-not-to-see-them thing, which just made it blindingly obvious that he had seen them, and then Temperance decided just to escape the whole situation, which was obviously way beyond her limited social skills, and run away._


	3. Tattoos

She swallowed hard, and found herself leaning against the table to steady herself. Her vision span for a moment, she felt dizzy.

'Low blood sugar.' she told herself. 'Or shock. Perhaps you've got the flu coming on.'

But it was none of those things.

She should walk away. Let someone else do it. Let someone else sort through these pathetic bones.

"No." she said out loud to herself. "This has to be me. I won't let anyone else touch him."

She switched the tape recorder back on.

"There is a scrap of skin still adhering to the right wrist." she noted clinically. "On it I can make out the remains of a tattoo."

"_What does the tattoo mean?" she asked him, standing in the desert, squinting against the sun, waiting for local enforcement to pull their finger out and actually show them the crime scene. Booth had reached up and adjusted his red sunglasses, and she'd spotted the small tattoo on his wrist._

"_What?" he asked, dragging his gaze away from the squad cars and down to her. She pointed at his wrist._

"_The tattoo. On your wrist. What does it mean?"_

_He pulled his shirt sleeve down hurriedly, and looked away from her._

"_Nothing. It's nothing. You know, just a kid thing. What's taking these guys so long?"_

"_Let me look." she insisted. And before she could object, she pulled his hand toward her, and ran her fingers, delicately, over the sensitive skin on his wrist. She appeared not to notice his sudden shiver. "Tattoos fascinate me." she told him. "In other cultures they're marks of wealth, or social status, or bravery in battle. Not in our society. In our society, they're perceived as merely decoration. But in actuality, their use runs much deeper than that. Often..."_

"_Bones..." he interrupted "Not that I'm not enjoying the lecture, but that Sheriff over there thinks we're holding hands."_

_She looked up suddenly, first at Booth, her eyes wide, then across to the Sheriff and his deputies staring at her._

"_Oh, right." she suddenly realised, and dropped his hand like a hot potato. "Sorry."_

"_Don't worry about it. Hey, you can have a closer look later. I'll tell you the whole sordid story."" he reassured her._

"_No, that's okay. I've seen it now." she said,walking away towards the grave site. Behind her she heard Booth say softly_

"_Damn it."_

_but she didn't know why. And she was suddenly shy of asking._


	4. Identified

She studied the particles carefully, reaching for a magnifying lens. She examined the dirt embedded in the bones, and reached for the reports that had been left on her desk. She placed the fragments carefully back on the table, and if her fingers lingered longer then usual over them, she failed to notice it. She switched the tape back on.

"Most of the bones have not been recovered. Given that what little soft tissue remains bears the marks of wild animal teeth, I surmise the remains have been scattered over a wide area by local scavengers."

She stopped and swallowed a couple of times, closing her eyes tightly. Then she continued.

"The soft tissue is greatly decomposed. Given the state of these bones, I would conjecture that the body has lain out in the open for a period of at least six months."

"_Missing? What do you mean, missing?" _

"_I mean exactly that, ma'am. Agent Booth left his motel room at approximately nine pm last night and hasn't been seen since." The sheriff said patiently._

"_But...what are you doing to find him? I mean, where did he go? Why can't you find him?" she was almost screaming, panicking even, and the sheriff patted her, trying to calm her down._

"_We think he had a lead and went out to follow it."_

"_Alone?He wouldn't do that. He knows better. There's a serial killer out there after him! Do you know that?"_

"_We know that." he said soothingly. "We have search parties scouring the woods, the rivers, we've got the description of both Agent Booth and the suspect, out to all the local law enforcement agencies. We'll find him, ma'am, I promise."_

_He walked away to rejoin the search, leaving Temperance clinging to the counter. She suddenly felt weak at the knees, and sank to the floor._

"_You have to find him." she said, to no-one in particular. "He has to come back. He promised."_

"_He promised."_

Temperance placed the bones gently into a box. She labeled it carefully. She washed down the table. She switched off the lights. She walked back to her office, and wrote up her report. It was late, so late it was now early morning, but still she didn't leave, didn't rest, didn't stop, until she'd written the last line.

'In conclusion, I identify these remains as being those of...'

She paused a second, suddenly reluctant to write the words, but then she picked her pen, and wrote firmly on the paper.

"Agent Seeley Booth."


	5. Promises

"_Booth, it's a serial killer." she said, following him as he marched through the corridors._

"_I know that." he told her._

"_And he's after you."_

"_I know that too! I have been following the case, Bones."_

"_Well, what if he gets you?"_

_Booth turned around and smiled suddenly, a quirky, one-sided smile._

"_Would you miss me?" he asked, grinning. She didn't grin back._

"_Don't tease. I'm serious."_

_His smile faded. He stepped towards her._

"_You're really worried, aren't you?" he asked, reaching out to brush her hair back from her face._

"_Yes." she admitted. He didn't move his hand away. Instead he tangled her hair round his fingers._

"_I can take care of myself." he said, gently. She shrugged, impatiently._

"_I know. I know, but..."_

"_I'll be careful, I promise." he told her. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. Before he could leave, she reached up, her arms around his neck, and pulled him in for a kiss, passionate and hasty and desperate._

_Finally, she let him go. She stared up at him, feeling her eyes grow as wide as his, wondering if he felt that sudden twist in his stomach, knowing that a flush crept up her cheeks, but not feeling embarrassed. It had felt...exactly right._

"_I needed to do that." she told him._

"_I know." He agreed, and she sawthat he had needed it too._

_He pulled his hand out of her hair, and stroked one finger down her cheek._

"_I'll come back to you Bones. One way or another, I promise I'll come back to you."_


End file.
